


The Spirit Mirror

by Emma



Series: The Queen's Magicians [3]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-22
Updated: 2010-09-22
Packaged: 2017-10-12 03:06:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/120079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma/pseuds/Emma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A cursed mirror sends Owen on a quest for justice… and Gwen stumbles upon a secret. This is <em>Ghost Machine</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Gwen watched Ianto as he maneuvered the cursor along the satellite view of the road they were driving on. Each little twitch he made was replicated by the delicate antenna on the gizmo he had attached to the passenger-side mirror. Anyone looking at it would think _what an odd place to put an antenna_. What it was actually doing was tracking energy readings, much like a sensitive would. When Tosh had shown it to her for the first time, the uneasiness must have shown on her face, because the technologist had dragged her to her work station and pointed at her terminal.

 

"Can that replace me?"

 

"Of course not!"

 

"Why not? It can dig up information, correlate data, and draw up a list of possible outcomes…"

 

Gwen had thrown up her hands, laughing. "All right, I get it!"

 

Truth was, she had always been a bit intimidated by technologists. Oh, she knew how to use a computer, and was even half-way competent at troubleshooting, but people like Tosh and Ianto, who seemed to speak to them in their own language, seemed as far above her understanding as she was to a probationary constable.

 

 _Different skills_ , Gwen, she told herself firmly. _Different, not better or worse_.

 

"Over there!" Ianto nearly shouted, pointing at one of the houses before dropping back with a muttered, "damn."

 

"What is it?" Jack asked.

 

"The house is full of energy, all right, but it's residual. There's a stronger reading in that direction," he pointed, "but it has a sense of… dislocation."

 

"Whatever it is, it's being moved," Jack said. He studied the small end-of-terrace cottage with its _Madame Hermia, Spiritualist_ purple neon sign on the drawing room window. "All right, this is what we'll do. You two keep after whatever it is. I'll check with Madame Hermia."

 

He got out of the SUV and Gwen moved to the driver's seat. "Where to, Ianto?"

 

"Keep straight on."

 

She followed his instructions, doubling back several times until they found themselves hear the city centre. "Ianto, we won't be able to drive. They're setting up for the festival over the weekend. Most of the streets are closed… what is it?"

 

Ianto had stiffened up like a shorthaired pointer. "There. That guy in the Newport RFC jacket? He has it."

 

She swung the SUV into the nearest space. They followed the man on foot, trying their best to look like a couple out for a late afternoon stroll. The guy was easy to spot. He looked a bit like a scarecrow, skinny, with an oversized head on a stringy neck and dirty looking hair sticking out in every direction. He was trying to seem as casual as they, but was having far less success; he kept looking around as if the whole of the South Glamorgan constabulary was after him.

 

Suddenly he stopped in front of a jeweller's window, making a show of admiring the display. Gwen saw him pull something out of his pocket and look at it. Whatever it was made him jump around to scan both sides of the street until he was looking straight at them. Then he made a mad bolt in the opposite direction.

 

"He's making for the station!" she shouted as they gave chase. "You're faster than I am. Get to the other entrance. We'll bottle him inside."

 

Ianto nodded, not bothering with words as he turned down a side street at top speed. Gwen ran down the station stairs, pushing through the officer managers and investment bankers making their way home. She could see her quarry ahead of her, as trapped by the crowds as he was. Unfortunately, the corridor widened as they reached the second flight of stairs, and he was able to make a break for it. He ran down the steps, pushing people out of the way like ninepins. If he managed to get to the old-fashioned turnstile at the far end of the lobby she would lose him.

 

She jumped the last few steps and lunged, grabbing a handful of his jacket. He twisted, smashing his fist into her side. The pain made her bend over, gasping for air, but she kept hold of the jacket. He twisted again in the other direction. She hung on, kicking at his legs blindly. Realizing he couldn't shake her he pulled his arms from the jacket and ran up the stairs, leaving her with his jacket clutched to her chest.

 

"Dammit, dammit," she tapped her ear piece, "Ianto, where are you?"

 

"On the upper concourse headed towards you. I don't see him."

 

"You won't. Bastard belted me and ran back up the same way he came in."

 

"I'm still registering the energy readings."

 

"Got his jacket." She straightened up, wincing at the pain on her side. "I'll wait for you here, right?"

 

"Yeah."

 

She patted down the jacket. There was something in the inner pocket. She pulled the zipper and reached in.

 

It was a small lady's mirror with a silver frame and handle embossed with roses and studded with pearls and small rubies. It looked incredibly expensive; the sort of thing a wealthy woman kept on her dressing table for show. But instead of a pretty floral bouquet, or a lovely lady, the back supported a large ruby carved with the profile of a snake-headed woman. It chilled Gwen's blood to look at it. She turned the mirror over.

 

Where the glass should have been was a flat sheet of polished metal. In the background, small lights seemed to flicker on and off; her eyes were drawn to it and she couldn't look away. Her lids closed slowly.

 

When she opened them she was in an empty station. There were train noises in the background but she couldn't see a single soul. The lights were dull and yellow, and she could see war posters on the wall. World War Two posters.

 

Footsteps that sounded more like pistol shots made her turn towards the gates. A little boy wearing an old fashioned short-trouser suit and a cap walked up from one of the tracks. He was carrying a small suitcase and a twine-wrapped parcel. From the other hand dangled a tattered teddy bear. A large tag had been pinned on his shoulder with the name _Tom Erasmus Flanagan_ written on it in block letters.

 

"Hello? Who are you?" She whispered, voice trembling. "Can you hear me?"

 

"I want to go home." She could hear what he was thinking, what he was feeling. "No one knows who I am here. I'm lost." He turned away, desolate.

 

"Come back." She almost whimpered. "Come back."

 

"Gwen? Gwen!"

 

She snapped back to the present to find Ianto standing in front of her, a slightly panicked look in his eyes. "Are you all right?"

 

"No really." She tried to smile. "I've just seen a ghost."

 

"Gwen… you're a medium. You do that all the time."

 

"I know. It's just… he wasn't dead."


	2. Chapter 2

When Gwen and Ianto exited the station, they found Jack and Owen waiting for them.

 

"What are you doing here?" Gwen asked the doctor. "I thought it was your day off."

 

"So did I." Owen made a sour face. "I was getting ready to dissect a perfectly adequate chop and two veg, followed by a night out on the tiles, and I get a call that the boss needs a chauffeur."

 

Jack gave him a big grin before turning to Gwen. "Did you get it?"

 

"Yeah. But…"

 

"What happened?"

 

"I had a vision."

 

"I'm not surprised," Owen said. "Place this big with so many people passing through every day, must have at least a dozen accidents, heart-attacks, and suicides every year."

 

"No, Owen, you didn't hear me. I didn't see a ghost. I had a vision." Gwen pushed back her fringe impatiently. "That's a very new experience for me."

 

"May I suggest we head back to the cars?" Ianto interjected. "We can get some useful work done at the Hub. Where are you parked?"

 

"Right next to you," Owen said. "If we go through the park we can avoid most of the festival nutters."

 

Jack wound his arm through Gwen's. "So tell us what happened."

 

She told them as they walked, trying to give them a sense of the wrongness she had felt. "I didn't have a sense of death or anything like that. I think I was getting a vision of something that happened during the war. The memory remained strong because the boy's feelings were so strong. It was more like…" she groped for the words, "the way I was getting the message was wrong."

 

"Let's use the train underpass," Ianto said. "It'll get us out of here faster."

 

"Is anything wrong, Ianto?" Jack asked.

 

"No. It's just that…no. I'm sorry. It's nothing."

 

They started out along the train tracks. The underpass was overhung with vines and there was water pooling everywhere. The only light came from a lamppost at the other end, where the overpass ended on one of the park's bike trails.

 

"Was it like psychometry?" Owen asked.

 

"I don't think so. I wasn't getting impressions about the mirror. It was… it was like the mirror was helping me see Tom Flanagan. And it felt wrong somehow."

 

"Can I see it?"

 

She pulled it out of her pocket and handed it over, He examined it as best he could in the poor light. "It's ugly, isn't it? And it's not glass…" As he looked into it, the twinkling lights drew him in and his eyes closed.

 

When he opened them, he was alone. The underpass looked different; the vines were not so overgrown and the lights were brighter. He heard someone behind him, running, and turned to see a young woman, a girl really, wearing a pink outfit and big fluffed hair with a big bow that screamed nineteen sixties. She leaned against the wall, trying to catch her breath.

 

"They're all bastards. Mum was right. I shouldn't have left with him."

 

"Liiiiizzziiiiieee…. Liiiiziiieee Leeeee…"

 

Owen watched a man come down the slope towards the girl. He was wearing a cheap suit but a good overcoat; odd thing to notice, he thought, but there it was. He was handsome in a flashy sort of way but there was hardness around the eyes.

 

"Stay away from me, Ed. The girls said not to go with you…"

 

"But you made your own decision, Lizzie. That's what I like about you. You're smart."

 

He crowded her against the brick and kissed her. It was rather sweet and gentle at first, but when she tried to pull away he grabbed her by the back of the neck. Owen heard the snick of a flick knife.

 

The girl managed to get free. "I told my mum I would be home by nine, Ed. She'll be looking for me."

 

"Shhhh…. Shhhhh…"

 

"Please don't hurt me, Ed. Please."

 

Owen watched helplessly as he pushed her down on the first and sliced her clothes away. The rational part of his mind realized this had happened a long time ago, but the human part demanded he do something, anything, but there was nothing, and it tore at him. He watched as the man raped the girl and then slit her throat.

 

"I didn't want to hurt you, Lizzie," the man said as he staggered to his feet. "I didn't!"

 

"Owen! Owen!" Gwen's voice made him blink and look up. His teammates were running back towards him. "We looked around and you weren't there! What happened?"

 

"I couldn't help her, I couldn't…"

 

Ianto pulled out a handkerchief the size of a football field. "Here. Give me that." When Owen handed him the mirror, he wrapped it carefully and passed it to Jack. "I think you should carry it, sir."

 

"Yes, Ianto. Thank you. Owen what did you see?"

 

"A man," Owen took a big breath and forced the words out, "raped and killed a girl here back in the sixties."

 

Gwen took his arm and pulled him along gently. She could feel the shivers still running through him. "Jack, I think…" She tapped her earpiece, "Tosh."

 

"What the hell is going on? You went into the underpass and I lost you!"

 

"Sorry. Full report later, I promise. Could you see if you can find a Thomas Erasmus Flanagan anywhere in the records? If he's alive he could be anywhere in the UK, but try London and Cardiff first."

 

"All right. Give me a few minutes… Thomas Erasmus Flanagan." She rattled off an address. "About ten minutes from where you are."

 

"Thanks, Tosh. I don't know what I would do without you and your machines."

 

Tosh giggled. "Actually, I started with the phone book."

 

"What are you thinking, Gwen?" Jack asked.

 

"We've had two experiences with the mirror. In both instances they involved people feeling terrified. Now, if this man Tosh found is the little boy I saw, and he's alive and well, then the mirror isn't so much a scrying tool as a… projector, I guess."

 

"And if it picks up and projects strong emotions without a sensitive to operate it…?"

 

"Can you imagine having people walking around tapping into everybody else's emotions at will?"

 

"Ugh." Jack grimaced. "All right. You and Ianto go ahead and check on Mr. Flanagan. We'll head for the Hub and start work on the mirror."


	3. Chapter 3

Thomas Erasmus Flanagan turned out to be a retired University of Cardiff archaeology professor in his late sixties, still in full control of all his faculties and a bit of a flirt. Gwen flirted back, amused. When she asked him about the incident at the train station, he laughed.

 

"Oh, my, yes. I was evacuated during the war. The East End was getting a pounding. So was Cardiff, really, but we were going to families out in the countryside. There was a mix-up. London sent one child more than they were supposed to and somehow the news didn't get back to Cardiff. I had walked away from the group, so when they counted heads, well… I wandered around for a while, scared out of my wits, I don't think the bombs scared me as much. It all got sorted out. A rail guard found me and called the resettlement people. I was sent out to a farm outside Pontypridd, Mr. and Mrs. Price, uncle and aunty I called them. Then there came news that my mum and sister had been killed. There was nothing for me in London, so I never went back. So tell me, what is this all about?"

 

"Some sensitives have reported seeing a little boy in nineteen thirties clothes wandering around the station. One of them was able to read your name tag. We just wanted to make sure it wasn't an unreported disappearance or something."

 

He looked at her shrewdly. "Very well, my dear, we'll leave it at that. Now, how about a cuppa?"

 

"I'm sorry, I can't. My partner is waiting outside." She laughed. "And my boyfriend at home, so I better get going."

 

She stepped out into a beautiful, cool evening with a nearly-full moon overhead and a soft breeze rustling in the leaves. If she got lucky she could get home in time to have some moon-watching time with Rhys, on their tiny balcony, with a glass of wine and some cheese or something. Between his job and hers private time was getting hard to find.

 

Ianto had parked down the street a bit. He was standing outside, speaking with a lovely young woman with dark skin and the most gorgeous braids Gwen had ever seen tumbling down her back to her waist. She had her hands on Ianto's shoulders and his were around her waist. She got a strange impression of a deeply intimate but strained encounter. When she tried to focus on the girl something pushed her away. Well, some sensitives had very strong privacy shields. Ianto certainly had.

 

As she approached them her attention was distracted by a rustling behind her, as if someone was trying to walk through the fallen leaves without making sounds. "Oi! Who's there?"

 

Nobody answered and there were no more sounds. She must have been mistaken. Turning back, she found Ianto standing near her, gun out.

 

"Everything all right?"

 

"Yeah. I thought I heard someone back there but it was probably nothing." She smiled at him. "So, who was the girl?"

 

"What girl?"

 

"The one you were talking to, twpsyn!"

 

"Oh. Just one the Uni students asking for directions. Let's go."

 

He rushed her into the SUV and peeled off in a hurry. She opened her mouth to tease him a little, but the closed set of his profile made her keep quiet. There was grief and anger there, and a bit of the lost, scared boy she had seen at the station. She hoped for his sake he could bring himself to talk to Mother Katherine, or to Jack, about whatever was troubling him.

 

When they got to the Hub they found Andy making himself at home, flirting with Tosh and driving Owen spare. "Hello!" he called to them, throwing out his arms extravagantly. "I'm here to steal your sweetest flower, your brightest star…"

 

"I think Jack is taken," Ianto murmured in Gwen's ear, making her burst into giggles. "All right, then," he said louder, "so that means you're not waiting around for some coffee."

 

"Jamaican beans?"

 

"Yep."

 

"A little anticipation never hurt anyone," Andy said to Tosh, who slapped him with a file folder, laughing.

 

"Where is Jack?" Gwen asked.

 

"Here I am." Their boss appeared at the door of his office. "I've been making phone calls to some experts, but let's start with Tosh's research."

 

"The mirror is called The Eye of Medusa. It has a long and nasty history. It has changed hands more than two dozen times, and none of them in proper fashion. At one point it belonged to Catherine Deshayes, called La Voisin, a French sorceress who was burned at the stake for sorcery and poisoning. The latest owner was Oliver Richardson, the music mogul who was killed last month when his plane crashed into the Channel. It disappeared from his house a few days after his death."

 

Jack held up a piece of paper. "I have good news and bad news. The good news is that there is definitely only one Eye of Medusa, so we're not likely to have the streets filled with idiots carrying mass-produced focusers and reading people's minds. The bad news is that it's really bad news. It was made using a piece of Perseus's shield. According to my sources, when he cut Medusa's head off, her blood spattered the shield and fixed her reflection in place."

 

"Hold it." Owen said. "Are you telling me there was really a Perseus?"

 

"Yes, though not quite like in the story." Jack answered. "The real one was a no-neck bully-boy who went out to make his name by killing monsters. He managed to find himself a Gorgon who wasn't quite sane. Otherwise he would have been snake lunch."

 

"All right, but… why would this make the mirror act like that?"

 

"Gorgons are both empathic and prophetic, Owen. Something of that must have transferred to the shield."

 

"Great. Any more bad news?"

 

"Yes." Tosh had been looking at something in her screen. "There was a companion piece, a hairbrush. It's missing too."

 

"Marvelous." Owen groused.

 

Gwen sat down next to Tosh. "So, our best bet to find out what's going on and find the brush is to find our thief. Tosh, you said you were following us on CCTV?"

 

"SOP, straight out of the Torchwood operations manual."

 

"All right. Can we find a useful view of him?"

 

"Ahead of you." She brought up a still photo showing Gwen wrestling with the man at the station. "I was going to run it through the databases…"

 

"Don't bother." Andy said. "That's Sean Harris. Nicknamed Bernie, God only knows why. Petty thief. Lives with a Mary Saunders in Splott. She calls herself Madame Hermia, does spiritual readings but if she's a sensitive I'm the King of France. There's been some odd things happening with Bernie lately. One of his lady friends jumped in front of a bus. We found out later she hadn't been quite honest with the proceeds of the till at the job. Then another guy, Ed Morgan…"

 

"Who did you say?" Owen's voice was soft and even.

 

"Ed Morgan. Weird old duck, lives by himself a few streets away from Bernie, never goes out, everything is delivered in. Anyway, he called us and insisted we had to send someone out there, that Bernie was snooping through his windows, that he was trying to kill him. Unhinged, really. And of course, when the constables got there it was _nothing doing, sorry officer_. The constable did a little snooping and found out Bernie was seen hanging around near Ed's house at least once, though." He shrugged. "Like I said, odd stuff, but nothing we can hang an arrest on."

 

"Andy, " Owen asked, "was Ed Morgan ever involved in a criminal case?"

 

"Not that I know of, but I haven't been here long…"

 

"He was," Tosh said. "In nineteen sixty four a girl called Elizabeth Anne Delmet, Lizzie, was raped and murdered in… the park where you were tonight? Ed Morgan was questioned but he was never charged."

 

Owen showed his teeth in what might have passed for a smile. "Tosh, do we have an address on Ed Morgan?"

 

"Owen," Jack said. "We can't get involved in things like this. Leave it to the police."

 

"The police missed their chance in ninety sixty four. A vision of mine isn't evidence so there's nothing they can do now, either. So it's up to me. I'm going to find Ed Morgan and I'm going to make him pay for Lizzie Delmet's death."


	4. Chapter 4

Owen stopped the motorbike one inch away from Andy's leg. "I should have known. Did Jack send you?"

 

"Nope. I just wanted to remind you of something. _It is mine to avenge; I will repay_."

 

"Deuteronomy 32. Don't look so surprised, Andy. Unbeliever doesn't mean ignorant." He stared into the distance. "That girl… I can't get her out of my head."

 

"I would think less of you if you could, but…" Andy stopped abruptly. "Well."

 

Owen twisted slightly to see what Andy was looking at. "That's Bernie."

 

"Indeedy. And coming out of Ed Morgan's house."

 

He started to cross the street. Owen watched and tried to settle his own mind. He wanted Morgan's head on a platter with a ferocity that startled him. Lizzie's face had been haunting him all night. He couldn't sleep, so he had done some research. She had been nineteen. She worked at a millinery shop, for God's sake, and helped her cousins with their babies. All she had wanted was a short walk on the safest part of the wild side. Instead she had gotten Ed Morgan.

 

But he had a responsibility. It would surprise his colleagues, he knew, but he took his work seriously. Katie's death had driven him to despair, but Jack Harkness had dragged him back by giving him something to fight. Ed Morgan would still be around when it was all over. He turned his back on the cottage and followed Andy.

 

The constable had cornered Bernie against a fence and was doing a very good job of terrorizing the little thief. Owen was always amused by Andy's transformation. The pleasant face took on a crimped, sinister cast, and there was something mad gleaming in the eyes. The choir-trained voice acquired a nasty undertone that promised serious damage to anyone giving him any backchat. There were toughs in Splott who pissed their pants at the thought of being at the receiving end of that voice.

 

"Bernie, Bernie. What am I going to do with you?"

 

The squeaked like a mouse in a trap. "I've done nothing. Honest!"

 

"Bernie, honest is the one thing you're not. Now, you know how this goes. You make me happy, Bernie. And when I'm happy nothing happens. Yeah?"

 

"Okay, Mr. Davidson. Sure. What do you want to know?"

 

"How did you come by the mirror, Bernie?"

 

"Hermia… Mary, she's a pack rat, goes to all those car boot sales and things…."

 

"Bernie. That mirror has gone from princes to cardinals to sorcerers to multimillionaires. It has never seen a boot sale in its whole privileged life. Try again."

 

Bernie swallowed hard. "My cousin asked me to come to London. Help out as it were. They told us to make it look like a robbery, so we took some things…"

 

"And you poor sad arse ended up with a cursed mirror and hairbrush. Bernie, if you didn't have bad luck you wouldn't have any luck at all." Andy grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and shook him a little. "So where is it?"

 

"At Hermia's place. She and I we used to… well until…"

 

"You used to play the blackmail game until Allie Grifith jumped in front of the bus." Andy pushed him. "All right, we're going over there. Owen, call Jack. I have a feeling there'll be some other artifacts in Bernie's stash he'll need to confiscate."

 

At Mary Saunders's cottage, Bernie led them upstairs to a shabby, dirty little room with a bed, a table holding a small television, and an old-fashioned wardrobe. He dug around at the bottom of it and pulled out a cardboard box. Reaching into it, he brought out a lady's hairbrush. It was obviously meant to be a companion piece to the mirror, except that on the back, instead of a gorgon's head, a small oval piece of metal was enclosed within a wreath of rubies and pearls.

 

"Here. Here. You can have it. Gawd, I don't want the thing."

 

"Why?" Owen asked. "You were fine with the mirror. Why does the brush scare you?"

 

"It's not the same, is it? The mirror, well, I could find out things about people and it was fine, but the brush tells you what's going to happen to you!" He was shaking now. "I saw it. I saw me in hospital, there were tubes and things, and I couldn't breathe!"

 

Owen picked up the brush. It didn't feel like the mirror. This felt…alive, as if it were laughing at him, and it pulled and wouldn't let go. Andy's strangled _Owen, don't!_ was lost in the roaring in his ears. He looked into the metal.

 

He was standing in the street in front of Ed Morgan's house. There was a bloody knife in his hand. Ed Morgan lay at his feet, pressing down on the hole in his stomach.

 

A hard slap to the side of his head sent him tumbling onto the bed. He looked up to see Jack standing over him, holding the brush easily in his hand. "How many times have I told you not to play with the toys, Owen?"

 

"I'm going to kill Morgan." He whispered. "I'm going to kill him."

 

"Maybe. And then again, maybe not." Jack glanced at the mirror casually. "The future is not as simple as that. Gwen, anything interesting?"

 

She had been looking through the box. "Nothing to write home about. Well, the stones on this one are real. Unfortunately, they're rose quartz, not pink diamonds, so if Bernie thought he had made his fortune, he's out of luck."

 

"All right. Andy, you can take Bernie. Another year or so in HMP Cardiff will do him a world of good."

 

"Hold on a moment, Jack." Owen stood up, rubbing his temple. "What were you doing at Ed Morgan's house, Bernie?"

 

"Well, he owed me a bit of money…"

 

"Bernie…"

 

The warning rumble in Andy's voice made Bernie jump. "All right, all right! I knew about the girl. I went out one night with the mirror. I passed Morgan's house. It was like somebody had put a big spotlight on it. So today I went to see him, borrow a few quid, but the bloody sod doesn't say anything, just sits there playing with his knife, on, off, on, off, so I just left, all right?"

 

"Maybe we should pay a visit to Morgan after all," Jack said. "Owen…"

 

"Jack."

 

They looked at each other. "All right," Jack said, "as long as you're willing to accept the possibility."

 

Owen just nodded.

 

When they reached the Morgan house they found him standing by the gate. In the full light of day Owen saw that the monster in his nightmares was a flabby old man with rheumy eyes and drool crusted on his shirt. The knife in his hand snicked on and off, but Owen didn't think he even noticed.

 

"Oh, Great Mother." Gwen whispered. "Oh Brid."

 

"What is it?"

 

"He's done it more than once. Before Lizzie. But she stayed. She won't let go."

 

Jack walked up to the old man. "Mr. Morgan, I think you need to come with us. You don't look well." The rheumy eyes flickered at him. "A few days in hospital and you'll be all right."

 

The rheumy eyes flickered, looking past Jack to Gwen. "There you are. I knew you would come for me."

 

Almost without a pause he launched himself at her. Jack simply held his arm out. Morgan slammed into it and staggered back as if he had hit a solid barrier. The knife flew out of his hand and landed at Owen's feet. He looked at it, mesmerized, but took a step back, keeping his hands in his pockets.

 

Andy helped the old man to his feet. Morgan was docile, almost subdued, shuffling along and muttering. Gwen and Jack were standing by the gate, speaking to someone Owen couldn't see, but he could guess who it was. For the second time in his life he wished his gift was different than what it was, so he could say goodbye to Lizzie.

 

As Morgan passed the knife, he seemed to come to life. Tearing himself from Andy's light grasp, he lunged for it and came up swinging it in a wide arc. Andy tried to step in under his guard, but the blade flashed down and Andy bit back a scream as it sliced into his arm. Bellowing, Morgan turned towards Gwen.

 

"I knew you'd come back. I won't let you take me. I won't!"

 

Owen threw himself in his path and the two of them went down. Owen grabbed for Morgan's wrists and pushed, trying to get him to let go of the knife. The old man had the strength of the mad, and he used his weight to turn them so he was above Owen, bearing down. Owen strained upwards, twisting. He felt the knife slip into the man's soft stomach. Morgan slumped against him, pinning him to the ground for a horrifying moment before he pushed him away and stood up, knife in hand. It had all taken less than a minute.

 

Owen felt Jack come up and take the knife. "Gwen, take Andy to A&E. I'll handle…"

 

"No," Andy said. "You all go. I'll call it in. I came to see him because one of my snitches called me. When I got here he jumped me. We fought for the knife and he lost. Don't argue with me, Jack." He turned to Owen. "Mother Katherine will be expecting you tomorrow morning. Don't argue with me either."

 

Owen nodded meekly. He hadn't committed murder, but a man had died. He would need the help.


End file.
